blog-bannerimg

Predictive Analytics: The Future Of Travel Industry

Oct 12, 2023

Want to add a new edge to your travel business? How about you apply insights obtained from predictive analysis? It is in its heyday. The best part is you get hold of these insights right from your Travel Agency CRM.

Predictive analytics, data analytics, or big data (you can name it whatever you will) is a boon for business, given you implement it correctly. It is more like a crystal ball that presents to you your customers’ behavioral patterns when purchasing travel packages. These insights give you the scoop on your customers’ preferences and requirements before they even voice them out. So it becomes super easy for you to connect with them when you speak their minds and pitch the probably-preferred trips. 

Time for delving right into it!

What is Predictive Analytics? 

If you want to make your business grow exponentially, an easy way up is by getting smarter with technology. Data is not only your ‘new oil’, it is way more than that – the only resource that can help you. Leverage it to the fullest potential. How? With predictive analysis. 

Predictive analytics is a cutting-edge form of analytic study that helps you predict future trends by banking on your collected historical data, statistical modeling, data mining, and machine learning algorithms. 

When you back up accurate data for your travel company, you can seamlessly detect the possible roadblocks and future opportunities by analyzing data spread across your multiple repositories within the organization. However, if you think about it minutely, you will realize that your data needs to be put in a centralized platform so that it stays uncluttered and organized – ready to get retrieved whenever required. 

A deeper look at the advent of Big Data in the booming Travel Industry

News Flash: the travel industry has rebounded and with what godspeed! 

The competition is fiercer than ever. Predictive or data analytics is the game-changer here. As a travel agent, you get a clear picture of travel preferences, destination preferences, or booking trends to optimize those aspects of information for your business operations and services. 

Now I understand that predicting future trends is more like finding a needle in the veritable haystack of big data. But frankly, the pros weigh much bigger than this con. It enables you to analyze patterns and trends in real time, offers dynamic price points, and improves customer service and support with tailored experiences. Right from the beginning when marketing strategies are put into action, till the post-sales period, you can customize their experiences and build loyalty. 

Why is this so important? 

The fact is, your target customers are fickle-minded with less attention spans, progressively tech-savvy, and have a strong liking for personalized and efficient services. They have thousands of options to do business with, but you don’t. With predictive analytics, you can transition your business from a reactive approach to a proactive technique to make your business more customer-centric. 

Benefits Of Data Analytics With Travel Agency CRM 

#1. Enhance Customer Experience

Most modern customers prioritize experience right after their budget parameters. 

Let’s suppose that a potential customer has inquired about a particular tour package that you offer via a live chatbot or web form. They answer a series of questions about their preferences and requirements. Now, when you have a quality Travel Agency CRM in place, all of these inquiries with prospect information get stored and segmented into categories to help you gain an in-depth understanding of them. Leverage this intelligence to pitch opportunities as per their preferences. If they want an international trip to exotic locations, you can recommend tailored accommodations, activities, and similar destinations for the next trip. Use this tactic to get on with a more personal level with your customers. 

#2. Predictive Insights 

In such a fiercely competitive landscape, giving an edge to your travel agency is anything but a cakewalk. When you implement smarter strategies with predictive analytics, you can analyze and determine future trends or consumer behavior. You can easily predict increased demand for travel to a particular destination during different seasons of the year. It advances you to make smarter decisions, and adjust and improvise price points, marketing efforts, and services to maximize revenue generation. 

#3. Upsell And Cross-Sell Trips, More Than Ever 

A customer-centric approach can take your business to new heights. That’s what personalization and enhanced customer interactions do for your business. And data analytics lies at the crux of this strategy. Travel Agency CRM documents and arms you with information to help you recommend best-suited trip opportunities to your clients. These personalized recommendations create more opportunities for upselling and cross-selling your services. For example, a millennial student who might have budgetary constraints is more akin to choosing cheaper accommodations like hostels. Predictive analytics empowers you to understand user behavior and recommend relevant products to drive more sales and increase revenue.  

#4. Optimize Price Points 

Since the travel industry is booming today, businesses are leveraging predictive analysis to determine the optimum price for services that will cater to both ends – keeping competitive price points while satisfying customer expectations.

The tourism and hospitality industry is volatile. Meaning, you cannot keep a fixed rate for your accommodations and facilities to a great extent. Now as a travel agent, you can also learn and keep track of the popular destinations, and seasons on demand and raise your pricing strategically to generate more revenue. With huge volumes of customer data, you can extract valuable insights more accurately. 

But you must keep in mind, that all these acquired data points are unstructured. Travel Agency CRM helps you structure them as a centralized data hub. You can customize your cloud-based CRM tool with third-party app integration so that you can easily streamline data across all the departments in your enterprise and make it an advanced full-prof solution. 

#5. Marketing ROI

You are investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in your marketing strategies. Data analytics helps you measure the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns – which channels generate the most leads, and which ones aren’t, and provides insights on the channels that yield the best ROI. You can track your CTR rates, sales conversion rates, lead quality, sources, and acquisition costs to optimize your expenditure. 

#6. Social Media Sentiment Analysis

The power of social media is indispensable. It is not restricted as a platform to post pictures or scroll aimlessly, it is more like a business hub to generate more traffic. Social media even extensively influences travel habits and destinations. So it is crucial to track media trends for trending insights. 

People post thousands of pictures and itineraries and hundreds of travel destinations every day. It is exhaustive in a literal sense. 

Here you can use predictive analysis to understand the polarity of these posts and narrow down the emerging trends to prepare for business. It allows you to track your target consumers’ general behavior/responses/ sentiments to these posts so that you can understand their preferences or experience expectations. Bain & Company says that in 2020, companies claimed a 54% adoption rate for technologies that analyze customers’ sentiments from reviews or social media.  By the end of 2023, this figure is projected to soar past 80%, showcasing a remarkable surge in implementation.

#7. Better Operational Efficiency 

It’s a given that your company will certainly have roadblocks on the way. It’s part of the business. There will always be scope for improvement. Predictive analytics helps you identify all of them efficiently. 

Last words, 

If you want to make it to the top, you need a solution that advances and evolves with predictive analytics. 

Until now, you might have noticed that I have only encircled one main topic of discussion. Customers and customer-centric approach. Your customer base lies at the apex of your business. And when you think of your target customers, CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software becomes unavoidable. On top of that, if you get your hands on an industry-tailored Travel Agency CRM, then success is bound to be on your horizon. 

Travel Agency CRM harnesses your business with 25+ different kinds of reports and dashboards that offer comprehensive predictive analytics. These reports and dashboards fill you in with real-time information so that you can analyze customer behavior, browsing patterns, and purchase history. Based on their prior purchases, you can determine their preferences and pitch particular trips that they might be interested in. You can nurture customer relationships by personalizing tier website experience where you can display trip recommendations, relevant promotions, and seasonal offers. Implementing predictive analytics with your Travel CRM enhances customer loyalty, and makes thorough improvements in terms of engagement, sales conversion, and revenue generation. 

Watch this video below to get a better understanding of how brilliantly this CRM solution works! 

Connect with our experts for more information! 

Schedule an Online Meeting